Energy News: January 2013 - December 2013

December 2013

A super energy-efficient high-performance computer, with a performance equivalent to 4,000 desktop machines running at once, will enable researchers to handle the Big Data challenges of the future - not least the design of a system to support the world's largest telescope.

Researchers have been able to tune ‘coherence’ in organic nanostructures due to the surprise discovery of wavelike electrons in organic materials, revealing the key to generating “long-lived charges” in organic solar cells - material that could revolutionise solar energy.

November 2013

Funding for six Cambridge-led Centres for Doctoral Training, along with a further two in which Cambridge are partners, across a range of physical sciences and engineering disciplines have been announced.

Innovative designs for retrofitting the vast NHS estate to stem rising carbon emissions and adapt hospitals to perform through a changing climate are being created through a multi-university collaborative effort.

This is the start of a month-long focus on research on sustainability and the environment. To begin, Professor Lord Martin Rees and Professor Paul Linden, respectively Chair and Director of the Cambridge Forum for Sustainability and the Environment, describe how experts from across the University have joined forces to examine how we can respond to some of the most pressing global sustainability challenges.

Latest research uses membrane technology for ‘energy efficient’ gas separation - a crucial part of many major industrial processes and important focus for increased sustainability in global energy production.

A new network of public and private sector organisations aims to carry out retrofits across Cambridge, bringing down carbon emissions, cutting energy costs, and helping to make it the first city to meet the UK Climate Change Act carbon reduction target of 80% by 2050.

February 2013

A public panel discussion, The future of energy (March 13), sponsored by Science AAAS, will be exploring this critical issue, and what possibilities exist when looking towards the future. Tim Radford, former Science Editor at The Guardian, will chair this panel discussion with Cambridge researchers Richard McMahon, Julian Allwood, Emily Shuckburgh and Tony Roulstone around challenges in sustainability – technical, intellectual, behavioural and political – and recent developments in energy research toward meeting these challenges.

Are buildings that consume less energy really more energy efficient as a result? As the University of Cambridge begins Switch Off Week, researcher Scott Kelly explains how predicting energy efficiency is easier said than done, especially once human behaviour becomes part of the calculation.

A new initiative – the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight – was launched in December 2012 to look at the ‘big picture’ of the movement of freight by road in the UK and to explore ways of making the sector more economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. The reduction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to global warming, is a key objective of the programme, in tune with the government’s targets of 34% reduction (compared with 1990 levels) by the year 2020, and 80% reduction by 2050.

January 2013

Graphene has been chosen as one of Europe’s first “Future Emerging Technology” flagship programmes, described as “the largest research excellence awards in history”. €1 billion, the project will aim to take graphene and other, related, layered materials from academic laboratories to society. The Graphene Flagship is a joint, co-ordinated research initiative of unprecedented scale, bringing together an academic and industrial network from 17 different countries and 126 research groups.

A software tool which allows researchers to determine what the most stable structure of a new material would be, what its surfaces will look like and how the bulk and the surface will behave when exposed to different chemicals has reached the commercial milestone of $30 million in sales. CASTEP is widely used in the oil and gas, chemical and semiconductor manufacturing industries, where along with other techniques, it can be used to enhance the efficiency of processes, and help identify the origin of failures in devices and products.

A centre for research on graphene, a material which has the potential to revolutionise numerous industries, ranging from healthcare to electronics, is to be created at the University of Cambridge. The Cambridge Graphene Centre will start its activities on February 1st 2013, with a dedicated facility due to open at the end of the year.

Dr Andrew Flewitt and Dr Robert Phaal, both from the Department of Engineering, and Scott White, serial entrepreneur and CEO of Pragmatic Printing, talk about the creative partnership forged between different parts of the Department of Engineering and outside companies to enable the technology and research in the area of plastic electronics to be exploited successfully in a new video created by the University of Cambridge

A team from the Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction have developed a mechanical amplifier to convert ambient vibrations into electricity more effectively, which could be used to power wireless sensors for monitoring the structural health of roads, bridges and tunnels.

Energy News: January 2012 - December 2012

December 2012

Researchers from the Universities of Manchester, Cambridge and Lancaster, has been awarded 13.4 million Euros (around £11m) to develop a new class of materials with remarkable properties using one atom-thick substances such as graphene and other two dimensional crystals in a new collaborative project.

November 2012

Dr Julian Allwood of the Department of Engineering has been appointed director of a new National Research Centre for reducing Industrial Energy and Material use in supplying UK needs has been established by EPSRC and ESRC. This collaborative partnership between the University of Cambridge, University of Bath, University of Leeds and Nottingham Trent University has been formed with funding of £6.2m. The UK Indemand Centre is one of five new End Use Energy Demand (EUED) research centres which will look into the complexities of energy use across society and how energy can be both saved and used more efficiently.

Image: Minister of State for Energy Greg Barker with Dr Julian Allwood (left)

A new Centre for Sustainable Road Freight Transport has been established with a total of £5.8 million funding for the first five years. There are two sources of funding for the first five years of research in the Centre: £4.4 million from the EPSRC and £1.4 million from a new industrial consortium. The consortium includes key freight operators such as John Lewis, Tesco, DHL and Wincanton, along with vehicle industry partners, including Volvo, Goodyear, Firestone among others, who will help set the research agenda and spearhead the adoption of the results by the road freight industry.

August 2012

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have produced hydrogen, H2, a renewable energy source, from water using an inexpensive catalyst under industrially relevant conditions (using pH neutral water, surrounded by atmospheric oxygen, O2, and at room temperature).

A Cambridge University study suggests that offshore wind farms could be 100 per cent more efficient in terms of energy payback if manufacturers embraced new methods for making the structures that support the turbines.

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